


I knew you’d haunt all of my what-ifs

by Em_Jaye



Category: Ant-Man (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Artist Steve Rogers, Cunnilingus, F/M, Face-Sitting, First Dates, Misunderstandings, Parent Darcy Lewis, Single Parents, Smut, Vaginal Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-13
Updated: 2020-09-09
Packaged: 2021-03-06 06:46:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 17,333
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25879141
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Em_Jaye/pseuds/Em_Jaye
Summary: She always missed Clara when they were apart. Even if it was just for a night or a weekend spent with Pietro. She missed her silly jokes and her endless questions and the things she’d draw or stories she’d make up. And selfishly, Darcy missed not having to think about who she was when Clara was at home. When she focused on just being Clara’s mom, she didn’t have to focus on how lonely she was, how scared she was to be hurt again, how the idea of trusting someone with her heart—with Clara’s heart—again seemed so unlikely it might as well have been science fiction.
Relationships: Darcy Lewis/Steve Rogers, Past Darcy Lewis/Pietro Maximoff
Comments: 117
Kudos: 318
Collections: Darcy Lewis Bingo





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Uh...hi. This was supposed to be PWP. I just want you guys to remember that when you get to the end and eventually the next part (which is alread mostly done, I really don't want to drag this out). This was supposed to be PWP. And here we are. 10k later.
> 
> Also, this is my first entry for Darcy Lewis Bingo 2020  
> 2 spots filled:  
> R-2: Face-sitting  
> Y-1: Coffee Shop AU 
> 
> ...bon appetit?

The clock in the kitchen informed Darcy they were right on the verge of being late. She grabbed the lunch bag off the counter and the bookbag from the back of the kitchen chair. “Clara Jane!” she called from the foot of the stairs. “You should have been down here five minutes ago!”

“My brush is stuck!”

“Where?”

“In my _hair_!” Clara exclaimed. “Where else would it be stuck?”

She closed her eyes and sighed. “Fair enough,” she muttered, dropping Clara’s school things in the living room before she climbed the stairs to the upstairs bathroom and found her eight-year-old daughter standing at the mirror. Her dark brown hair was tangled around Darcy’s round brush, a thick mess of frizz and knots that told Darcy they were definitely going to be late. “Clara.”

“I was just trying to curl it,” she defended herself, turning her large blue eyes on her mother.

Darcy swallowed her urge to groan and began gently picking at the hair wrapped tightly around the brush. “Sweetie, your hair is already curly,” she reminded. “And even if it wasn’t, this is not how you curl it.”

“I tried to get it out myself,” Clara said, her full lips pressed together thoughtfully. “But it just got stucker.”

“Yeah,” Darcy agreed. “That’s what happens.”

It took longer than she thought it would, and by the time Clara’s curls had released the bristles of the round brush there was nothing left to do but brush out the rest of her hair and pull it back into a French braid.

“Am I going to be late for school?” Clara asked when she’d finally been packed into the car and they pulled out of the driveway.

Darcy looked at the clock. “Probably,” she said.

There was a heavy sigh from the backseat. “Mrs. Donovan’s going to be mad.”

“Mrs. Donovan will get over it,” Darcy muttered. “I’ll write you a note to bring back tomorrow.”

“I’d never be late if I was homeschooled,” Clara reminded. A request that had only started gaining traction since she’d started third grade a month ago and found herself at odds with her new teacher. A sharp, impatient woman too close to retirement who thought Clara talked too much—she _did_ talk a lot, Darcy knew that—and didn’t like that she read books above the ascribed reading level and asked a lot of questions during social studies and science class about very specific things no teacher would have the answers for. Which of the Founding Fathers liked cats and which liked dogs, for example. Or what kind of activities the astronauts did for fun while they were on the way to the moon for the first time.

“Clara, I can’t homeschool you,” Darcy said for the hundredth time. “I have a job that doesn’t let me do that.”

“Julie Hilliard and her sisters are all homeschooled.”

“Julie Hilliard and her sisters are Mormons,” Darcy countered. “And their mother doesn’t have to work.”

In the rearview mirror, she watched Clara pout again and turn her face toward the window. “We could be Mormons,” she muttered.

Darcy smothered a smile. “I’ll look into it,” she promised lightly, reaching back to give Clara’s knee a squeeze, happy when she heard her laugh and squirm away.

“Love you, Mama,” Clara said when they pulled up to her elementary school. She leaned between the front seats to kiss Darcy quickly. Students were still filing off buses, putting Darcy’s anxiety at ease; at least she wouldn’t have to endure a phone call from her child’s teacher about her tardiness.

“Love you too,” Darcy echoed. “Don’t forget you have soccer practice today,” she said as Clara clambered out of the car. “Mr. Lang is going to pick you up.”

“I know,” she promised. “My stuff’s in my bag.”

“Learn a lot!” Darcy called through the open passenger side window. She waited for Clara to wave once more over her shoulder and disappear into the school before she navigated her car out of the parking lot and toward the coffee shop.

“Thank you for calling Gemini Coffee,” Daisy was saying into the phone as Darcy walked through the front door. The welcome and familiar smell of freshly roasted coffee beans greeted her along with whatever acoustic pop station her opening barista had chosen to start the day. A couple dressed for the office formed a line at the counter moments after she’d stepped behind it. “Hang on, Wanda,” Daisy said. “She just walked in.” She tapped the hold button with her thumb and held the phone out to Darcy. “I’ve got this,” she said of the new customers, already ringing up what must have been their typical orders.

Darcy took the hint and the phone and ducked through the swinging door into the kitchen. “Morning Wanda,” she said as she made her way to the back and tossed her purse in her tiny office.

“Good morning,” Wanda greeted cheerfully. “Too early for good news?”

Darcy smiled. “Never too early for good news,” she assured her former sister-in-law. “Did you get your meeting with the guy in Hartford?”

“Better,” Wanda said with a smile Darcy could hear in her voice. “I’ve got a meeting with the guy in Hartford _and_ his partner in Boston.”

“Get out,” Darcy demanded. “Really?”

“Really!” Wanda exclaimed. “I don’t know if I want to jump right into that market yet, but if it makes sense—”

“No, seriously,” Darcy encouraged. “Go for it.”

Gemini Coffee had started as a single truck that Wanda used to park just off campus between classes at Temple. In ten years, she’d grown her business from that single truck to two brick-and-mortar locations in Philadelphia and Brooklyn with five roaming trucks and three drive-thru shacks in between. Darcy had been managing the Philly branch since it opened, speaking to Wanda up in Brooklyn, and comparing notes, sales figures, and sharing updates on Clara every morning for almost eight years.

“Would you move again?” she asked, turning on the desktop and the overhead light. “If they want to move forward in Hartford?”

“I don’t know,” Wanda answered. “Maybe. Depends if they want a full store, I guess. Hey,” she coughed and switched gears. “What size is Clara wearing these days? At least a six by now, right?”

“Uh, no,” Darcy shook her head. “She’s still wearing the stuff you bought her last spring.”

“Seriously?”

“I know,” she shrugged. “She’s a shrimp and she eats like a linebacker. Do you have any matcha?”

Wanda sighed heavily from Brooklyn. “I have _so_ much matcha. It’s not moving up here—do you want it?”

“I’ll take whatever you can give me,” Darcy said, reaching for a pen to cross it off her order guide. “Can you ship it out?”

“Clint’s driving down to swap out your blenders tomorrow,” she said. “I’ll send a case with him. Can you spare any lavender syrup?”

Darcy rolled her chair out to squint at the syrup shelf’s inventory. “Definitely. Are you still selling a lot of lavender lattes?”

“Yeah it’s weird. This neighborhood is _not_ embracing fall on schedule this year. Oh, hey, I’ve gotta spend a few nights in town next month, can I crash with you and Clara?”

“Of course, you can,” she said immediately before she smiled. “Don’t want to risk your back on your brother’s array of futons?”

“It’s like he bought them just to discourage houseguests.”

Darcy tilted her head to one side. “That might not be too far off base, actually,” she said after considering it. “But yeah, of course you can stay with us. When are you thinking?”

“I think it’s the weekend of the seventeenth? But I don’t know for sure.”

“I mean, it doesn’t matter,” Darcy realized out loud. “Just let me know.”

“Will do. Did you send me your weeklies?”

“Parker should have sent them last night,” she said, pulling her bottom lip between her teeth. “Not there?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Wanda admitted. “This Nixon-era fossil I’ve been working with hasn’t booted up yet.”

Sounds of conversation and customers grew louder from the front and Darcy got to her feet. “Text me if they aren’t there when you finally get into your email,” she said of the weekly sales reports her closing shift leader was supposed to send every Wednesday night. “I’ll make sure you get them, but I gotta go—morning rush is picking up.”

They said goodbye and Darcy hopped out front to jump on the drink line with Fitz while Daisy rang and called orders. Their little rush stayed predictably steady until just before nine when the office drones all retreated to their cubicles and Darcy was able to start working on her schedule for the next two weeks.

“Don’t you want to hang out?” Daisy asked with a quick glance to the clock. “For like…ten more minutes?”

She frowned. “No…I want to get these schedules done.”

“But it’s Thursday.”

“And?”

“And he wasn’t here _last_ Thursday,” Daisy said pointedly. “Which means he’ll be here today…probably soon…”

“Who are you talking about?” Fitz asked, flushing the steaming wands, and giving them both a quick scrub.

“Nobody,” Darcy said firmly, her cheeks heating up. She failed to smother a smile between her lips as she turned toward the swinging door again. “But I should be done in an hour or so if he…” she coughed and glanced at Daisy. “Needs a refill or something.”

Daisy snorted and nodded as Darcy left to tuck herself back behind her desk while she finished her paperwork. She hadn’t been playing coy, she really had forgotten what day it was. If she’d remembered, she likely would have put in a little more effort with her eyeliner. But it was too late for messing with her makeup now, she reminded herself as she got to work sorting through a mercifully short stack of request-off slips. And now that she _had_ remembered what day it was, and who was likely sitting in the dining room already looking way too good and being way too sweet to be real, there was nothing stopping the excited little flutter she felt in her stomach.

Steve was really Wanda’s customer. He lived in Brooklyn, only a few blocks from the shop there and worked out of that location most mornings. Except for every other Thursday morning, when he and his insanely broad shoulders and shy smile parked themselves in _her_ shop while he worked from nine until around eleven before leaving for meetings at the publishing house on the next block.

She knew a handful of things about him besides his name and the outrageous difference in the ratio of his shoulders to his hips. He drank wildfire lattes with extra cinnamon and preferred to sit in the same place every time he visited—at the counter facing the window, right next to the wall. She knew he worked as an illustrator and mostly did children’s books—including one of Clara’s favorites when she was younger—and that he seemed to be genuinely kind and funny, oddly shy for someone so good looking, and just far enough out of Darcy’s league that she felt free to flirt with him without any worry he might be taking her seriously.

She finished the schedule and printed out copies for the bulletin board before she dropped it into the store’s shared calendar and emailed it to the whole crew. Then she stood and stretched, ducked into the bathroom to make sure she still looked at least as presentable as she had when she left the house (she did) and wandered back out front to join her staff.

“You’re good to go for next weekend, Fitz,” she said by way of greeting, watching as he filled two double shots of espresso in tiny mugs.

He looked up, hopeful puppy-dog eyes. “Jemma too?”

She smiled. “Jemma too,” she assured him. “Got some big romantic plans?”

“Uh, I don’t know…” he glanced down and set the mugs on their small saucers before he carried them over to the pick-up counter and called out the name on the ticket.

“He does _so_ know,” Daisy teased from where she was organizing receipts at the register. “He’s taking her to a cabin in French Creek—it’s going to be _very_ romantic.”

Beside her, Fitz sighed. “And what’s more romantic than having everyone know what you’re planning to do before you do it, Daisy?”

“Who’s _everyone_?” Daisy scoffed without missing a beat. “It’s Darcy—we tell her everything anyway.”

That was true. One of the side effects of having a staff of mostly early twenty-somethings was that they tended to look at Darcy as more of a scout leader-boss hybrid.

“Well, have fun,” Darcy said diplomatically. “Whatever you’re doing.” She finally let her eyes wander over to Steve’s usual corner just in time to catch him sliding his empty mug to one side. She shooed Fitz out of the way and quickly brewed a refill into a fresh mug.

“Get it girrrrl,” Daisy muttered under her breath as she walked past, not bothering to look apologetic when Darcy shot her an admonishing glance back.

Steve was bent over a digital tablet when she approached. He looked up as she swapped the empty cup for the full and offered her a smile that flipped her stomach. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” she smiled back and held out her free hand. “Payment please.”

Steve’s smile brightened as he moved the tablet and picked up a small square napkin. On the blank side, he’d drawn a scaled down scene of a crowd of people waiting to ride a Ferris wheel, somehow managing to capture a whole slice of life right down to twinkling carnival lights with a standard black ink pen.

Darcy grinned. “A Ferris wheel?”

“Oh, hey now,” he laughed. “That’s not just any Ferris wheel. That’s the Wonder Wheel at Coney Island. It’s the best one in the world.”

“What makes it so special?” she asked, studying the drawing he’d given her a little more closely.

“The cars are inside the wheel,” he said, leaning closer to point to the tiny cars he’d drawn within the interwoven bars of the structure. Darcy tried her best to take a discreet inhale. He smelled too good. “They swing while the wheel rotates and slide back and forth so it’s kind of like a rollercoaster and a Ferris wheel combined.”

Darcy bit her lip. “That sounds scary,” she admitted with a quiet laugh.

“Nah,” he shook his head. “Not if you have the right person with you.”

She carefully folded this week’s offering and tucked it into her pocket. “Fair enough,” she said with an easy roll of her shoulders. “But I hope you know all these pictures of Brooklyn hotspots are just securing your role as tour guide when I finally come visit.”

“Guess you’re finally on to my master plan,” he said, dropping his blue eyes for just long enough to make Darcy wonder if he wasn’t entirely joking.

“But one of these days you’re going to have to start drawing _my_ city,” she said, changing tactics when she realized she didn’t have anything to say that.

“I would if I had anyone to show me around when I’m here,” he countered.

“Who has time to show you around when you’re only here for a few hours twice a month?” she laughed again.

Steve looked down again quickly and cleared his throat. “Uh, actually, I’m here for a little longer this time.”

She felt her eyebrows lift without her permission. “Oh yeah? How long?”

“Just until Saturday morning.”

She smiled again. “I’ll make you a list of things to do while you’re here then,” she suggested, just about ready to turn to get back to work. “Where are you staying?”

Steve blinked and a look of confusion crossed his face. “At the, uh, Warwick?” He motioned south with his hand, the direction from which he’d walked.

“Oh, that’s a nice place,” she said with a nod. “There are plenty of things you could see within walking distance,” she decided as the phone began to ring. “I’ll give you some options before you go.”

He didn’t look any less confused when he nodded, acknowledging that she had to get back to work. “Sure; thanks,” she heard him say as she waved and turned to jog back behind the counter to answer the phone.

The phone was for her anyway—her coffee bean rep, looking for her weekly order. She had just pinned Steve’s weekly napkin doodle on the bulletin board with the others—the New York skyline, the Brooklyn Bridge, the front gates of Coney Island—when, like clockwork, the rep from the dairy called next so she could place her order for milk, cream, yogurt and eggs. After she’d ended that call, Darcy grabbed the guide for dry goods and finished that chore, too. Between all three, she was on and off the phone for almost ninety minutes.

Just long enough to walk past the window of the kitchen’s swinging door and be surprised to see Steve still sitting in his usual spot. She stopped scooping cookie dough onto the tray and went to reach for a pen and paper to scribble down the name of some lesser-known attractions before she stopped herself a second time.

He hadn’t really meant for her to show him around, had he? She frowned in thought, trying to play back their conversation word-for-word before she shook her head. Because no, if Steve had wanted to spend his short time in Philly _with_ her, he would have just said so.

She returned to her list before she stopped a third time. Although, the other side of her brain reasoned, if he _had_ been hinting at wanting to spend time with her, she had clearly missed that with her offer to provide the exact same thing he could get from a thirty-second Google search. She sighed and scrunched her nose. “Oh please, Darcy,” she begged herself quietly. “Please don’t be that stupid.”

With a muttered _fuck it_ under her breath, she jotted down three places that she knew wouldn’t show up on most searches and finished baking the afternoon’s batch of chocolate chip cookies before she went back out front.

“You can take your break, Dais,” she said, tapping her on the shoulder as she finished up with a woman who always ordered jasmine tea and a peanut butter cookie.

“Okay,” Daisy said without objection. She plated up the cookie and slid it across the counter before she clocked out and untied her apron with flourish. “See you in thirty.”

Darcy sidled up behind the register and checked the clock. Almost quarter to eleven. If she was going to get a lunch rush, it wouldn’t arrive until eleven-thirty at the earliest. There were only three people in the dining room and all of them had been served. She cleared her throat. “Fitz, why don’t you go, too?”

He looked up from where he was not-so-secretly checking his phone. “You sure?”

“Yeah,” she shrugged. “It’s just a half hour to handle if anything get crazy, but I’m sure it won’t.”

“Okay,” he said easily, already clocking out. “If you’re sure.”

Fitz grabbed a teabag and filled a cup with hot water before he shed his apron and followed Daisy out the front door. Darcy restocked some cups and lids; she stood up from tucking the sleeves of extras back under the counter and nearly yelped in surprise to find Steve standing on the other side.

“Hi,” she said with a grin, hoping to hide how her heart had jumped straight into her throat.

“Hi,” he echoed. There was a small smile at the corner of his lips, but overall, he didn’t look relaxed.

She reached into her apron pocket and pulled out the list she’d made. “As promised.” She offered it to him. “Something to keep you occupied while you’re in town.”

Steve took the list and gave it a quick glance. “Thank you,” he said before he looked up and shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “Actually, um, I didn’t mean for you to uh—” he cleared his throat. “I was trying to be cool and subtly ask you to have dinner with me tomorrow night.” The words came out quickly, not quite a rush, but bumping into each other on their way to sinking into Darcy’s mind.

It took her a second to realize what he’d said. “You were?”

“Yeah,” he huffed out a short laugh. “I guess I was a little too subtle.”

She felt herself smile. “No, I just…” she shook her head. “Actually, yeah,” she laughed. “You were too subtle.”

“That’s what I get for trying to play it cool,” he said to himself.

“But um,” it was her turn to clear her throat nervously. “I would. If the offer still stands.”

He blinked, looking genuinely surprised. “Yeah?”

She nodded. “I should probably pretend I have to check my calendar or something but,” she shrugged. “I don’t. I’m free…and I’d love to have dinner with you.”

“Okay,” he said, and another smile pulled at his lips. “I hadn’t really psyched myself up past this point, so I don’t know where I should take you—”

Darcy laughed again, feeling giddy and giggly in a way she hadn’t for a very long time, and she fought back a blush by covering her mouth for a second before she forced herself to settle. “You’re in luck,” she said. “One of my favorite places in the city is right down the block from your hotel.”

She'd written down her phone number for him and agreed on a time and place to meet and Steve had packed up his belongings and headed for the office before it occured to her that she hadn't even thought about agreeing to his invitation. Her acceptance had jumped out of her mouth without any consideration at all. 

That was new.

***

Darcy liked Thursdays for a lot of reasons—aside from Steve’s occasional visits and it being buy-one-get-one day at the cupcake shop across the street—it was also the day she got to hang out with her fellow single parents at soccer practice.

Scott and Luis were already waiting when she arrived and began handing out coffees. Helen arrived soon after and gratefully accepted the chai latte Darcy had made for her. They settled down on the edge of the field on an assortment of blankets with their drinks and watched their kids darting up and down the field in bright blue jerseys.

Pietro was only a few minutes behind her and sat down on her left, dropping a kiss to her cheek as he did. She passed him an iced white chocolate mocha without taking her eyes off Clara dribbling the ball down for a practice goal. She waited until Clara had taken her shot—a near miss—before she glanced back to her ex-husband with a smile. “Hey, can you do me a favor tomorrow?”

“Sure,” he answered easily. “What’s up?”

“Can you pick Clara up from school instead of my place?”

Pietro nodded. “No problem. Three-thirty, right?”

“Yeah,” she mirrored his nod. “Thanks.”

“Everything okay?” he asked. “You got a doctor’s appointment or something?”

“Uh, no,” she coughed and looked down at her coffee for a moment, willing herself not to blush. “A…date, actually.”

“Oh yeah?” Scott broke in, his eyebrows lifted as he took a sip from his own latte. “Anyone we know?”

“No,” she shook her head, “I don’t think so. He’s one of my customers—his name’s Steve.”

“ _Steve_ ,” Pietro repeated, drawing his name out longer than necessary. “What’s he like? Nice guy?”

Darcy nodded again. “Seems to be. I mean,” she shrugged. “I hope so.”

“Darcy doesn’t seem like she’d be into not-nice guys,” Luis commented from Scott’s other side.

“Just the one time,” she said at the same time as Pietro. She glanced back at him and rolled her eyes affectionately. “Anyway, yes, nice guy. Or at least very good at pretending to be a nice guy in the time I’ve known him.”

“When’s the last time you went out with someone?” Scott asked, reaching for a pretzel rod from the bag Luis had brought.

“Way to go, Hector!” Helen called as Luis’ son leapt high into the air and caught the ball before it soared past him into the net.

Darcy and the rest of the blanket squad cheered for the third-grade goalie and Luis beamed with pride before she continued. “Uh…I don’t know. I can’t remember. It’s been a minute.”

“It’s been like, four months,” Luis answered, surprising the small group. “I only remember because it was right before school let out,” he went on when Darcy lifted an eyebrow. “And you were like, ‘I don’t even know if I really want to go but he invited me to the springtime gala at the art museum and I really want to see that Katsushika Hokusai exhibit before it’s gone at the end of the month.’ And Scotty was like ‘You don’t have to go on a date with some dude you don’t like just to see some art.’ And you were all, ‘Yeah, I know, but he seems nice.’ But then later, you were like, ‘No sparks with the guy at _all_ but the art was good, so it wasn’t a total waste.’ And then Helen was like ‘Yeah, but you could have seen the exhibit on your own and not have had to shave your legs, so it kind of was a little bit of a waste.’ And you were like, ‘That’s fair Helen; always hittin’ me with those hard truths,’ and I was like, ‘That’s how you know it’s real friendship, man. Can’t be afraid to tell each other the truth.’ And then we all took the kids to the Seaport Museum the next weekend and it was awesome and now Hector wants to build a submarine and it’s really hard to teach marine engineering to an eight-year-old but I’m tryin’ and I think we're making progress.”

Darcy blinked. “You really do remember everything, don’t you?”

He smiled. “It’s my curse.”

“Also, don’t try to discern a lesson from what I said last time,” Helen chimed in, not taking her eyes off the field where the kids had started another set of drills. “You should definitely still shave your legs for this new guy.”

“I was planning on it,” she said flatly.

“Above the knee,” Pietro suggested, accepting the smack Darcy gave him before he leaned over her, Scott, and Luis. “And his name is Steve, Helen.”

***

Darcy did not technically _need_ the house entirely to herself when she got home from work on Friday evening. But it made things a lot easier. Pietro usually picked Clara up around five-thirty, which would have given Darcy a little over an hour to get ready.

That probably would have been more than enough time. But it was so much easier to stand in her underwear in front of her open closet, stomach in a knot, staring at all of her clothes and wondering why she’d ever bought any of them if she didn’t have to worry about what her daughter was doing at the same time.

If she’d only had an hour, she wouldn’t have nearly enough time to do this, she reminded herself as she threw another dress onto her bed and dropped her head back with a groan. Clara being at Pietro’s already had given her an additional two hours to agonize over every aspect of her appearance and talk herself in and out of excitement about meeting Steve at seven o’clock.

She managed to hold out until five o’clock before she reached for her phone. Wanda answered on the second ring. “What’s up?”

“I’m supposed to meet Steve in two hours and I literally have nothing to wear.”

“Steve?” Wanda repeated. “Steve who? And what are you meeting him for?”

“Steve,” Darcy echoed. “Customer Steve. Artist Steve. I’m meeting him for dinner.”

“You’re meeting _Steve_ for dinner?”

“Yeah, in two hours and I don’t know what to wear,” she reminded impatiently.

“Why didn’t you didn’t tell me this? I’m so excited! He’s such a sweetheart!”

“Wanda!” Darcy would have clapped her hands if her sister-in-law had been sitting in front of her. “Please help. You always look amazing—tell me what to wear.”

“Hang on,” from Brooklyn, Darcy heard the sound of Wanda shuffling the phone against her shoulder, keys jingling and a door closing. “Wait, just hang-up and video call me. Then I can see what we’re working with.”

She did and flipped her screen to show Wanda the short list she’d thrown onto her bed. “Everything is awful.”

“Strawberries,” Wanda said almost immediately. Darcy reached out and picked up the black sundress printed with strawberries. “Yes. That. You look super cute in it.”

“I do?” Darcy asked dubiously as she held it up to herself to examine it in the mirror. “You don’t think I look like a kindergarten teacher?”

“Uh, no,” Wanda laughed. “Or if you do, you look like a sexy kindergarten teacher. Just leave the top button undone and wear your hair down. Trust me, you’ll look amazing.” She waited a beat. “How come you didn’t mention this date before now?”

Darcy set the phone on the dresser, treating Wanda to a view of the ceiling while she pulled the dress over her head and unbuttoned the top button as instructed. “Uh, I would have this morning, but you had that ethical mouse dilemma you needed to talk about. Did you get that taken care of, by the way?”

“Oh, yeah,” Wanda said, waving a hand as Darcy picked up the phone again. “There’s a humane exterminator who’s doing the traps tonight—my adorable little freeloaders should be gone by morning. And see?” She beamed. “I told you. You’re a total babe. Go rock his world and blow his mind.”

Darcy rolled her eyes. “It’s a first date,” she reminded. “I’m just hoping for a nice time—nothing too awkward.”

She and Wanda said goodbye a few minutes later and she turned her attention back to the mirror. “Nice time,” she repeated to herself. “Nice guy. Nothing awkward.” She looked up and met her own gaze. “You can do this, Darcy.”

***

As it turned out, Darcy did not need the pep talk she gave herself in the car all the way back downtown. Because despite her nerves and her exceptionally rusty dating skills, it turned out that she could, in fact, still do this.

_This_ was actually pretty fun. They sat outside under the bistro lights at Harper’s Garden and traded bites of jerk chicken and butternut squash ravioli while they made small talk about the coffee business and the book Steve was working on—the one that brought him to town every other week and kept him this time for a Friday full of meetings.

“But I don’t really want to talk about work anymore,” he said with a soft smile. “Tell me something about you that I don’t already know.”

Darcy felt her insides flip as she fought her nervous urge to pull her bottom lip between her teeth. “I…have a daughter,” she said after a second’s worth of debate about whether or not to drop that particular bomb so early. But better to know if it was a dealbreaker now, she figured, than later when she’d already had a good time and was starting to feel hopeful.

Steve’s expression didn’t drop or darken, his eyes stayed on hers, half-smile still on his lips. “How old is she?”

“She’s eight,” Darcy said, the relief she felt a clear indication that she’d already started to feel hopeful, regardless of what she’d been telling herself. _Whoops._ “Her name is Clara.”

Steve’s smile broadened. “Do you have a picture?”

She laughed. “I have about thirty million,” she reached for her purse under the table and retrieved her phone. “She’s a well-documented child.” She flipped quickly through her recent photos to find one of the two of them from the end of summer when they’d gone to the beach for a date. Clara was on Darcy’s lap with an ice cream cone in her hand and a mess all over her face. Their dark curls were blown around in the wind and they wore matching, cheesy smiles. She offered him the phone with a bounce of her shoulders. “That’s my girl.”

“She’s beautiful,” he said after he’d studied the photo for a moment. “She looks just like you.” Darcy let herself bite her lip for just a second as she took the phone back and returned it to her purse. Steve coughed lightly. “And I might have already known that about you.”

She looked up, surprised. “How?” she laughed. “Do I give off mom vibes?”

It was Steve’s turn to laugh and Darcy noticed the tops of his ears turned pink. “Wanda told me about Clara a few weeks ago when I was…” he coughed again. “Asking about you.” Before she could respond, he went on. “Although I did hear you tell one of your baristas to wear a sweater when she went on her break awhile back.” He grinned. “If I didn’t already know, that would have given you away.”

She let out a choked laugh. “It was Jemma!” she exclaimed. “She’s very tiny and has no body fat! And she’s my best barista—I couldn’t risk her catching cold.”

Steve chuckled. “It was eighty degrees outside.”

Darcy shook her head and sighed. “Alright,” she relented. “Guilty as charged. Total mom vibes.” She watched him laugh again as she reached for her drink and took a sip before she crossed her legs under the table, brushing his with her foot. “And why were you asking Wanda about me, anyway?”

“Because I like you,” he said, keeping his eyes on hers.

The flipping her stomach had done before was replaced by something that felt more like melting and she had to stop herself from giggling like an idiot. “I like you, too.”

Dinner slid easily into a walk through the park and two different flavors of Italian ice to share along the way.

“Tell me something weird about you,” Darcy suggested before she stole a spoonful of mango ice from his cup.

“Something weird?” he repeated with a laugh.

She nodded and grinned. “You’re too normal so far.”

He’d told her a little bit about growing up in Brooklyn—his single mom, Sarah; his best friend, Bucky. How he and Bucky had both joined the Army after high school because they couldn’t afford to go to college any other way.

They’d hated it, he had admitted. Both of them had hated everything about it and had retired the second they could. Now Steve was an illustrator and Bucky was a science teacher and they still lived across the hall from one another.

Steve looked thoughtful for a second while Darcy stole another bite of his ice. “I don’t have a smartphone,” he said and she coughed. He glanced over with a grin. “Is that weird?”

“Yeah,” she laughed. “How do you not have a smartphone? What do you use?” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a scratched up black flip phone. He handed it to her, looking amused when she laughed again and turned it over in her hand. “I feel like I’m handling a historical artifact.”

He snorted. “Hardly. I’m sentimental, I guess. Or maybe just practical. I don’t know,” he shrugged. “It works fine—and if I had something else, I’d be tempted to check my email all the time or fall into the instant-gratification trap.”

She lifted an eyebrow and offered him her cup of raspberry ice. “Instant-gratification trap?”

He shrugged again. “Yeah, I mean, I’m a pretty impatient person in general so not having everything be available right at my fingertips all the time is,” he laughed and shook his head. “Okay, it’s frustrating, but in a good way. Means I have to get creative sometimes.”

Darcy nodded slowly with understanding. “Like, for instance, asking Wanda about me on the sly instead of just stalking my social media presence?”

“Something like that.” He looked down at her with a grin. “Is that too weird?”

Darcy shook her head. “Not weird at all,” she promised as she handed him back his relic. They walked in comfortable silence for a few steps before she summoned the courage to add, “So you’re a _delayed_ -gratification kind of guy?”

She felt him look over at her again, studying her profile in the moment it took her to stop walking and look back at him. The edge of his mouth lifted into a half-smile. “Some aspects of my life more than others,” he said quietly.

Darcy’s heart stuttered in her chest when Steve reached out and pushed her hair back from her face. His fingers were warm, a featherlight brush against her cheek before he slid his hand into her hair and pulled her close, covering her lips with his.

It was a slow, sweet kiss. Just enough for her eyes to close and her knees to feel unsteady when she leaned into him. Just enough to make her want more; and to be able to tell that he wanted more too. Just enough to assure her that none of this was one-sided.

He pulled away first, but kept his hand in her hair, his thumb brushing gently over her cheek when she opened her eyes into his. He smiled softly. “Do you, um, have to get home anytime soon?”

Darcy shook her head; her nose brushed his. “No,” she said, keeping her voice low, like she was sharing a secret. “Clara’s at her dad’s for the night.”

Steve nodded and his chest rose with his inhale. “Then would you want to come back to my hotel with me?”

“Yeah,” she nodded and stretched up onto her toes to press another whisper of a kiss to his lips. “Yeah, I’d like that.”

His hotel was only a block away, but it felt like forever until they were standing in front of his door. He’d crowded her back against it, his head bent to kiss her while he fumbled with the key card. “Goddammit,” he muttered finally, breaking away from her after four failed attempts to open the door.

Darcy snorted and covered her mouth to muffle her giggles. Steve glanced over, his cheeks flushed, a lock of his dark blonde hair falling into his eyes while he purposefully waved his card over the sensor. “What was that about being impatient?” she teased.

The light turned green and she had to smother another giggle at how Steve’s shoulders relaxed. He turned the handle and hooked an arm around her waist, dragging her inside with him. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you,” he reminded, closing the door behind them, and pressing her back against it again. His hand reached up to hold her cheek again. This time his thumb brushed over her lips and he stopped an inch above them. “You sure about this?” he asked, his voice low and rough. It cut through her; a rush of heat straight to her belly.

“Just kiss me, Steve,” she breathed, reaching for a handful of his jacket even though he couldn’t get much closer.

Her eyes darted from his down to his lips and she watched them twitch upward in a smile. “Yes ma’am,” he said before he tilted her face up to his and met her lips for a kiss.

Darcy let out a soft moan of relief as her hands slid up his chest, slipping beneath the lapels of his jacket as his lips moved against hers with a quiet, undeniable hunger. He let her go long enough so she could push his jacket down his arms and drop it to the ground behind him. Steve pulled her away from the door, his hands dragged down her neck and over her breasts, pausing just long enough to squeeze them once as he backed them up further into the room.

He slapped distractedly at the light switch and in a moment, the room was bathed in soft lamplight and Darcy could see enough to focus on the buttons of his shirt when she opened her eyes. She pulled back, desperate for a breath and grateful that Steve had no problem with her untucking the button-down from his pants while he trailed a chain of kisses over to her cheek and ear, running his tongue along her earlobe before he pulled it between his lips and sucked lightly, dragging a deeper moan from her open mouth.

Her fingers flew over his buttons, working to undo them as quickly as the material would allow until it finally hung open and she could push that layer away as well, leaving only a thin white t-shirt that she took hold of and pushed upward. Steve grabbed the collar and pulled it over his head, dropping it to the ground as unceremoniously as the rest of his clothes and smirked when he raked a hand through his hair, shoving it back from his face. “Speaking of impatient,” he said quietly before he reached out to grab her hips again and pulled her back in.

His lips returned to her neck, teasing flick of his tongue and gentle scrapes of his teeth over the column of her throat had Darcy’s knees weak and her heart racing. “Oh, I’m sorry,” she exhaled, tilting her head when he nudged it to the right. Her hands ran over the warm, sculpted muscles that rippled over his arms and shoulders. There was so _much_ of him, she thought with a dizzy grin. “Did you just invite me up here for coffee?”

“You want coffee?” Steve asked, his mouth over her pulse while his hands roamed with increasing confidence over her curves. “I can make you coffee,” he let her go to motion vaguely to the dresser behind them. “Over there somewhere. Gimme a second, I’ll figure it out—”

Darcy snorted again, giggling when his fingers skated over her ticklish ribs. “Don’t even think about it,” she laughed and arched into his palms when he grabbed her breasts again.

She felt him smile against her neck before he started walking backwards again, dragging her along until his knees hit the bed and he sat down on the edge of it. She stood between his legs, taller than him now, and raked her hands into his hair, pulling his face back to hers for another long kiss. His tongue slipped between the seam of her lips and stroked over hers, she heard a soft moan from the back of his throat. His fingers went to the buttons down the front of her dress and he plucked them open, one by one. Slowly, like he was giving her a chance to stop him after each button.

But she had no intention of stopping him. She waited until enough had been unbuttoned that she could wiggle out and let the dress fall in a heap on the floor, leaving her in her bra, panties and the high heels she hadn’t kicked off yet. She felt her heart hammering in her throat when Steve pulled her hands away and let his eyes roam over her body. He met her gaze while he pressed the tips of her fingers to his lips and smiled. “You’re so beautiful.”

Darcy bit her lip and let him pull her close again so she was straddling his legs instead of between them. “Okay,” she replied softly.

“Okay?” he repeated with a quiet laugh.

She nodded and brushed her nose against his before she dropped a quick, teasing kiss to his lips. “Yeah,” she said with a grin. “Okay. I’ll believe you.”

Steve took hold of her face again. “You should,” he said, pulling back just far enough so she could look him in the eye. “It’s not a line.”

She swallowed hard and nodded again, finding her breath a little harder to come by the longer she looked at him. “Okay,” she said again. It sounded different that time, even to her.

“Okay,” he repeated as that soft smile returned to his lips. “Now, come here.”

Steve’s arms wrapped around her and he pulled her down into his lap. She sucked in a sharp breath when he groaned and she ground down on the erection straining against his pants. His hands spanned the width of her back, the feeling of his chest pressed against hers was intoxicating, making her feel hot and desperate for more while he ran his fingers down to her hips. And back up again. Trails across her skin that were somehow soothing and frustrating, calming any nerves still lingering and keeping her on edge, wanting more as fast as she could get it.

His lips had wandered from hers back down her neck and over her collarbones before he pulled back again and glanced at the rest of the bed behind him. Darcy smiled and gave his shoulder a light shove. “Lie back,” she commanded softly. “I want to take these shoes off.”

He chuckled and let her stand up before he slid backwards on the bed, kicking off his shoes and socks. She stepped out of her heels and crawled up after him until she had bracketed his hips with her knees, and she sank down into his lap again.

He groaned again, a low rumbling sound from his chest and Darcy rolled her hips slowly, wanting to hear it again. He ran his hands up her sides and to the black satin straps of her bra. He slipped his fingers beneath one strap and then the other, slid them down over her shoulders and dropped his head to kiss the tops of her breasts while he reached behind her and plucked experimentally at the clasp before she reached behind herself and popped it open. She shifted to be up on her knees again when he slipped the straps the rest of the way down her arms and tossed the bra aside. Steve’s hands were full of her breasts for the second before his mouth was there, sucking a nipple between his lips and swirling his tongue while he rolled the other between his thumb and forefinger.

She sighed and let her head fall back when his other hand drifted down her stomach and between her legs. He stroked over the lace twice before he pushed the flimsy fabric aside and slid his fingers into her slick folds, finding and circling her clit with shocking efficiency. “Jesus,” he murmured appreciatively, kissing his way over to take her other nipple in his mouth.

Darcy’s breath caught in her throat as he kept going, pressing down harder and dipping into her center just enough to tease her until she whined and felt him smile before he released her with a soft, wet _pop_ and looked up through long, dark eyelashes. “Was there something you wanted?” he asked, a cheeky glint in his eye.

“Yes,” she breathed, pushing back his hair again and rolling her hips harder into his hand. “I want you to stop teasing me.”

He drew his hand back up her chest and curled it around the back of her neck, pulling her down for another kiss. “I’m sorry,” he said softly. “I won’t tease you,” he promised, trading her soft, playful kisses between his words. “You can have whatever you want.” Despite his promise, he pulled his hand from between her legs to wrap around her waist, pulling her down with him when he lay back on the bed.

Darcy dropped one of her hands beside his head, keeping herself propped up while her hair fell over her shoulder, a curtain of dark curls around them. Her other hand touched his face, running her thumb over his cheekbone before she traced over his plush, pink lips. Swollen from her kisses and too inviting to pretend she wanted anything else. “Your mouth,” she said, willing her cheeks not to burn at the request. “I want you to put your mouth on me.”

He grinned before she leaned in to kiss him again and she expected him to roll or flip her over, but he didn’t. His hands went to her hips and lower, squeezing her ass and tugging her gently, coaxing her up his torso. “Then come up here,” he said, the words muffled against her lips. “On my face.”

Everything in Darcy’s brain short-circuited. “Excuse me?” she choked out a shocked laugh.

But Steve wasn’t joking, despite the smile on his face—somehow shy and salacious and encouraging all at once—when he reached up and pushed her hair behind her ear again. “Please?”

She exhaled a shaky laugh and felt herself nod. “Since you asked nicely…” she murmured, pushing herself back up to get off him long enough to kick her panties down her legs and toss them to the foot of the bed with the rest of her clothes. And then Steve was reaching for her again, dragging her back on top and sliding down further until her knees were over his shoulders on either side of his head and he’d wrapped his arms around her thighs, holding her in place. “I’m a little worried I’m going to squish you,” she admitted, scrunching her nose.

Steve turned his head and placed a kiss on her inner thigh. “You’re not gonna squish me,” he promised and kissed her again, a little higher up. “Just relax,” she felt him smile again as he tugged her down. “And come here.”

At the first brush of his tongue, every thought in her head evaporated. She pulled her lip between her teeth again and tried to muffle a moan, only succeeding in making it come out as a whimper when Steve's grip on her hips tightened and his nose bumped her clit. She heard him groan while he licked her open, taking his time, savoring her like he'd never tasted anything better in his life.

"Fuck," she breathed, reaching out a hand to steady herself on the headboard. 

Beneath her, Steve moaned again and brushed her clit with his nose, his breath hot against her before he pulled her down further onto his face and pushed his tongue inside. She whimpered a second time and gripped the headboard with both hands, rolling her hips to meet each insistent thrust of his tongue. 

He shifted up and circled her clit with his tongue before he pulled it between his lips and sucked. Darcy cried out as her orgasm rushed through her, hard and unexpected and sending waves of warm relief through her limbs while Steve lapped at her greedily until she couldn't take it anymore and leaned forward, up off his face and dropped her forehead onto the headboard with a breathless laugh. 

Steve wriggled out from underneath her and swiped a hand over his face before he knelt behind her, his arms circling her waist as he kissed her between her shoulder blades. "You okay?" he asked, a smile in his voice as he kissed his way up her neck, his whole body a warm, welcome weight at her back. 

Darcy laughed softly. "That's a word for it," she admitted, looking back over her shoulder. His lips were soft and still tasted salty when she turned in his arms to kiss him. Her hands trailed down his chest and undid his belt, the button and zipper of his pants. He made a sound against her lips when she slipped her hand beneath the waistband of his boxerbriefs and gripped his cock. His lips left hers and trailed over to her neck, no longer muffling his groans as she stroked him with increasing insistence. She pushed his pants and shorts down over his hips, freeing his cock while she licked her lips and placed them against his ear. "Will you fuck me, Steve?"

He pulled back from her neck and let his forehead drop against hers, flushed cheeks and blown pupils and pink lips. "Absolutely."

He retrieved a condom from his wallet before it and the rest of his clothes were dropped to the side of the bed. He slid it on and reached for Darcy again, still up on her knees by the headboard. One hand buried in her hair while the other groped blindly at the pillows, pushing them out of the way while she giggled against his lips. "Who the fuck needs nine pillows?" he muttered, shaking his head before he had cleared enough space to lay her back down. She was still laughing when her legs went around his hips and he began to rock into her, slow and steady, filling her with a most satisfying stretch. He stilled when their hips were flush and dropped his head to kiss her. He brushed his nose against hers. "You have a really great laugh." 

Darcy grinned again before she bit her lip. "I don't usually do this," she admitted, grateful when he started to move slowly, sliding halfway out before he thrust in again. She closed her eyes, unable to swallow back another satisfied moan.

Steve kissed her again. "I don't either," he said softly, his hips moving against hers in a slow but steady rhythm. "But I really like you, Darcy."

She let her nails trail down his back and tipped her hips up to meet his until she had her hands full of his ass and she squeezed. "I really like you, too."

"Good," he whispered, his smile bumping into her lips. He began to move faster and Darcy let her head drop back again with a sigh, giving up on muffling anything and letting herself enjoy the way he felt, so deep inside her, dragging against her just right with every motion of his hips. 

His hand cupped the back of her knee and he pushed her legs open wider, thrusting deeper into her with a rough groan from the back of his throat. "God, you feel so good," he said, his words a hushed exhale as he got up onto his knees. He dragged her closer on his next thrust and Darcy's eyes shot open with an unexpected jolt of pleasure. 

Steve kept going, gaining speed, and hitting that spot again and again until Darcy felt her thighs begin to tremble and she watched his eyes closed. With only a few strokes of his fingers against her clit, she came for the second time, dragging him with her as she clenched around his cock and he slammed his hips into hers one final time before he fell back on top of her, both of them breathless and sweaty. 

He pushed himself up onto his arms and pulled out slowly. The tips of her fingers and toes were still tingling as she rolled to her side and watched him get to and walk to the bathroom. _That ass should be illegal_ , she thought mildly, unable to help her smile when he returned, offering her a glass of water. “Thank you,” she said, surprised that her voice was hoarse before she took a sip.

Steve studied her for a second and lifted his eyebrows. “What are you grinnin’ at?’

She debated on complimenting his ass aloud before she changed her mind. “Weren’t you just having the same sex I was?” she asked, sipping again at her glass. “Because if _you_ don’t feel like smiling after that, I must have done something wrong.”

He’d pulled on his boxer briefs again and sat down beside her, reaching up to pull her back to him for a kiss. “No,” he said quietly. “You did everything just right.”

“Mmm…” Darcy smiled against his lips feeling fuckdrunk and pleasantly sleepy. “You’re very nice.”

Steve snorted and shook his head, taking the glass from her when she’d drained it. “Thank you,” he chuckled. “You’re pretty nice yourself.”

She squinted in the low light for the clock. “What time are you leaving tomorrow?”

“My train leaves at six.”

She winced. “So early,” she commented, frowning. “I should get out of your hair then; let you get some rest.”

He followed her gaze to the clock. “You don’t have to leave right away,” he suggested lightly.

So she didn’t. He offered her his t-shirt and turned the bed down, welcoming her to crawl in beside him. “Not that you have to turn the tv on,” she said, when he automatically put an arm around her and pulled her down to pillow her head on his chest. “But if you wanted to, channel fifteen does Twilight Zone marathons every Friday night.”

Steve laughed. “This is what I meant when I said I needed a local guide to really enjoy the city.”

He found the remote in the bedside table and turned to channel fifteen just in time for Rod Serling to describe what they were about to watch as disturbing and not for the faint of heart. Darcy felt her eyes getting heavy almost immediately, barely registering the theme song before Steve kissed the top of her head and she fell asleep.

The room was dark, the tv timer having expired and shut off when she woke up next, still curled around Steve and wrapped in the blankets. She untangled herself carefully, grateful when she didn’t wake him. She’d barely taken three steps before her foot connected with Steve’s discarded pants and she kicked his wallet halfway across the room, spilling contents along the way.

“Shit,” she whispered, bending to pick up the scattered cash and credit cards along her way to the bathroom. She set everything on the counter until she was finished and had washed her hands. She didn’t know what order he’d had anything, so she just tucked the cards into the slots, the cash and receipts into the main folder—

Darcy stopped as she pushed a debit card back into an empty space and revealed a piece of notebook paper folded around a photo. She knew she should just put it back. Whatever this was, it was absolutely none of her business. _Just put keep it folded and put it back where you found it,_ she told herself as she unfolded it anyway and her breath caught in her throat.

The photo was of two pretty blonde people looking ecstatically happy. She felt like she was going to be sick. Steve was one of these pretty blonde people. His arms were wrapped around a slim blonde woman, his lips pressed to her cheek as she looked at the camera, laughing and with tears in her eyes. She was holding up her left hand, showing off a sparkling diamond ring. As if it had been taken only minutes after she’d first slipped it on.

The note was short and sweet and made her feel ten times worse. _Don’t forget! Bagels, shampoo, dish soap. Love you – Sharon_

She felt her stomach turn unpleasantly and for a moment, she thought she might actually throw up. She folded the note over the photo and stuffed it back into the wallet and pushed it as far away from her as it would go on the smooth countertop. She stared at herself in the mirror, the sinking feeling in her gut getting worse by the second. Her hair was a mess, her make-up smeared beneath and at the corner of her eyes, her lipstick long since kissed away.

A hundred questions flew through her mind the longer she stood there. Had she been _that_ stupid that she’d missed some glaringly obvious sign that Steve was married? No, she shook her head. No, she would have seen a wedding ring. And if she’d missed it when he was just her customer, he’d just had his hands all over her for the last hour—she would have definitely seen it then. So maybe he wasn’t married, she reasoned. Maybe he was just—

She stopped herself again. Maybe he was just…engaged? Just _planning_ on marrying this Sharon woman with her gorgeous hair and button nose and willowy arms while he picked up random women on his business trips?

Darcy squeezed her eyes shut and shook her head again. She wanted to go. Get home, away from that photo and that grocery list and all the warm and fuzzy feelings she’d been having that had just popped like a balloon. If Steve wanted to cheat on his fiancée, that was his business. She didn’t have to be a part of it. She could just go home and take a shower and pretend none of this happened and hope he felt appropriately wracked with guilt by the time he got home with Sharon’s bagels and shampoo.

She left the light on in the bathroom to see her way back into the bedroom, plucking her bra and panties from the floor before she shed Steve’s t-shirt and left it at the foot of the bed. She was buttoning the last of her dress buttons when he stirred and reached across the flattened sheets. She froze, her foot sliding into her shoe as Steve made a sound of confusion and blinked himself awake.

“Hey,” he said, his voice thick with sleep as he took in her state of dress. “What time is it?”

“Uh, almost four, I think,” she said, her heart hammering in her throat again. She could just tell him she knew about Sharon, she considered. Ask what he thought he was doing. Tell him she wasn’t anyone’s side piece and he ought to be ashamed of himself. But when she opened her mouth, all the venom and accusations died on her tongue. She didn’t _want_ to get involved in anyone else’s relationship. She just wanted to leave. Scrub herself in the shower and hope she felt better when she got out.

She knew she wouldn’t, but it was worth a try.

“I’ve gotta get home,” she said, motioning needlessly to the door.

Steve still looked confused and not entirely awake. “Hang on,” he said after a second, “I’ll walk you out.”

“No,” she shook her head. “Don’t worry about it—I’ll be fine, you keep sleeping.”

“Okay…” he said, squinting at her in the dark. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” she assured him, doing her best to keep her tone breezy, easy-going. “I just don’t want to be the reason you oversleep and miss your train.”

She doublechecked her buttons again and slid her foot firmly into her shoe before she turned and picked up her purse from where it had been dropped beside the dresser. To her dismay, he’d gotten up away and crossed the room to stand in front of her when she turned toward the door. He didn’t look guilty, she noted, just genuinely concerned. It twisted her stomach even more. “You’re _sure_ you’re okay?”

Darcy swallowed hard and nodded and, telling herself that it was because he was already trash and had turned her into an unintentional homewrecker and because she was never going to do it again, she stretched up on her toes and brushed her lips to his. “I’ll see you later,” she lied, more so he’d let her leave without forcing this confrontation she wanted nothing to do with. Not because she would see him again if he asked. Not until he was actually free to see. Free to want. Free to be hers if it worked out that way.

“Okay,” he said softly. Definitely not convinced. Definitely still confused. Concerned. Pouty lips and puppy dog eyes and nowhere near the person she thought he was, Darcy had to remind herself before she was pulled back in.

The house was too quiet when she got home and kicked her shoes off at the door. She dropped her purse on the couch and climbed the stairs to the bathroom. The shower didn’t do much except get the smell of Steve’s cologne out of her hair. She put on a pair of sweatpants and a t-shirt and stopped in the doorway of her bedroom.

It wouldn’t take much effort to pick up all her discards from her bed and put them back in her closet but doing so would remind her of how nervous she’d been to go out with Steve. How cautiously hopeful and how hard she’d tried to not be excited by the possibility of something new and unexpectedly sweet.

Darcy scrubbed her hands over her face and went instead to Clara’s room. She climbed under the covers of her daughter’s twin bed and inhaled her scent from the pillow; she always missed Clara when they were apart. Even if it was just for a night or a weekend spent with Pietro. She missed her silly jokes and her endless questions and the things she’d draw or stories she’d make up. And selfishly, Darcy missed not having to think about who _she_ was when Clara was at home. When she focused on just being Clara’s mom, she didn’t have to focus on how lonely she was, how scared she was to be hurt again, how the idea of trusting someone with her heart—with Clara’s heart—again seemed so unlikely it might as well have been science fiction.

She rolled onto her back and stared at the glow-in-the-dark stars that decorated the ceiling. Tears stung her eyes and blurred her vision, but she blinked them away.

She didn’t cry.

But she didn’t sleep, either.


	2. Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The aftermath. Naturally

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Unbeta'd as always, probably riddled with errors, but I've been meaning to wipe it from the WIP board for a hot minute. I love you guys. Oh, and there's a very obvious nod to Good Omens in this chapter which I hope you enjoy.

Steve called her on Sunday afternoon, and she let it go to voicemail. She told herself it was because she was out to lunch with Pietro and Clara—their weekly meal together to transfer custody—and that she’d call him back.

But she didn’t. And if she was honest, she had no intention of calling him back. She didn’t listen to the message he left until late that night, long after Clara had finished her homework and gone to bed. Any thought Darcy’d had that she didn’t care what he had to say abandoned her at the sound of his voice.

“Uh, hey Darcy,” he’d said, sounding a little awkward, a little hesitant. “It’s Steve. Just…wanted to see how you are. And uh—” he’d coughed lightly. “I don’t know, I guess that’s it. I’ll hopefully talk to you soon.” He’d hung up abruptly and she had sat on the couch, staring at his number for a few long minutes before she’d turned her phone off and pretended to watch a movie until she fell asleep.

She did her best to keep her mind from wandering all day at work, trying not to check her phone and keeping her call with Wanda mercifully short enough that there was no time to talk about their personal lives and what might have happened during Darcy’s date on Friday.

But she knew she couldn’t avoid it forever. She could ghost Steve without too much fallout, but Wanda was the link between them. And Wanda was family. And her best friend. And the more she thought about it, the more irritated she was that Wanda had encouraged this in the first place.

“Mommy?” Clara asked on Monday night while they made dinner together. “We have to do eye exams tomorrow.”

Darcy blinked and pushed away lingering thoughts of Steve and Wanda and Sharon and the whole mess and watched Clara push the green peppers and onions around the pan with her wooden spoon. “Okay,” she said, reaching over to give her daughter’s ponytail a quick tug. “You know it’s not something you can study for, right?”

Clara looked over and rolled her eyes. “I _know_ ,” she said, sounding much too old for her eight years. “But what if I have to get glasses?”

Darcy shrugged. “Then you have to get glasses, baby,” she said. “It’s not the end of the world. I think I was only a little bit older than you when I got mine.”

Clara’s lips plumped with a thoughtful frown. “But what if I don’t _want_ glasses?” she asked.

“If you need glasses, you’ll get glasses,” Darcy said firmly. “You need to be able to see clearly.”

The frown did not disappear; it only became more skeptical. “Do I? What if I’ve seen enough?”

Darcy snorted and came up behind her to kiss the top of her head. “How about you take your eye exam tomorrow and we’ll worry about your existential crisis later, okay?”

“What’s _that_?” Clara asked, her eyes lighting up at the prospect of a new, big word. “Will it get me out of gym class?”

Darcy laughed again. “Sadly, no.”

Her shoulders slumped for a moment before she turned around and studied Darcy with a curious eye. “Are you okay, Mommy?” she asked suddenly.

“Of course I am,” Darcy lied without hesitation. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

“I don’t know,” Clara shrugged and returned to the sizzling peppers and onions. “You seem sad, I guess.”

Darcy kissed her again and fought back a spiral into her conflicted and angry thoughts. “Just have some stuff on my mind, sweetie.”

Clara looked up, concerned. “Is it bills?”

“No,” she said truthfully. “Just some other grown-up stuff.”

“Will you tell me when I’m older?” her daughter asked, parroting a line she’d heard plenty of times already.

“Sure,” Darcy promised. “If you remind me.”

Clara smiled. “Okay. I’ll remind you.”

Tuesday was supposed to be a normal day. It started out fine. Clara had gotten to school on time, Wanda had texted her to say she was dealing with an understaffing crisis and would call her tomorrow, thus giving her another day to figure out how _that_ conversation was going to go, and everything in the shop seemed to be running according to plan.

Until two o’clock, when Steve walked through the door.

Two o’clock was, traditionally, the deadest hour of the day. So dead, in fact, that Darcy never had anyone else working with her. Her morning crew left at one-thirty, her swing was on lunch, and her closers did not arrive until four. Darcy always worked alone between two and three o’clock.

So when Steve walked through the door at five after two—predictably the only customer she was going to have for the next forty-five minutes—she had nowhere to hide.

Not that she wanted to hide, she told herself, trying not to notice how good he looked, how that irresistible smile was turning up the edge of his lips. She didn’t want to look at his lips. They would remind her of how perfectly they fit against hers. How soft and full they were. How he’d sucked her clit between those perfect lips and made her come so hard she saw stars.

“Hey,” he said casually as he approached the counter.

“What are you doing here?” she blurted out before she could stop herself. He wasn’t supposed to be here. Not on Tuesday. He was never there on Tuesdays. She was supposed to have ten more days to figure out what she was going to say to him the next time she saw him.

The smile slipped from his face. “It’s…nice to see you too,” he said, eyeing her carefully.

“Sorry—” she said entirely out of habit before she had time to consider if that was a word she should be throwing around. She wasn’t sorry. He was the one who should be sorry. “You’re just…usually not here on Tuesdays.”

He nodded. “Yeah, I know. The publishing house has a release early next week, so they wanted to move their schedule around a little bit.” He cleared his throat lightly. “I would have mentioned it…but you kind of bolted from the hotel and then didn’t return my call so…”

Sweat broke out on her palms as her throat ran dry and all her fight-or-flight instincts made her want to sprint for the door. She didn’t want to do this. She hadn’t wanted to do it on Friday night or on Sunday over the phone or two Thursdays from now when she’d had time to properly construct an argument. She wanted to go back in time three months and have never started flirting with him in the first place. “I didn’t…bolt,” she said finally. Softly. Lamely. If she wasn’t so uncomfortable, she would have rolled her eyes at herself.

“Yes, you did,” he said, though there was no edge in his voice. He still sounded concerned. Confused. A little hurt. “Look, Darcy, if I did something to upset you—”

“Just forget about it, okay?” she asked breezily. “I don’t think we should have gone out—I shouldn’t get involved with my customers and you’re…” she shook her head, wishing he’d just take the out she was giving him. Begging him not to make her call him out and ask him how stupid he thought she was. How stupid he thought Sharon was. How he could act like everything was perfectly normal and okay. “You’re definitely not looking for a long-distance relationship with a single mom so—”

“Whoa,” he blinked and held up a hand. “Can I have more than thirty seconds to decide that for myself—”

“No,” she said firmly, her heart pounding somewhere in the back of her throat. “Look, I was trying to let you just slip out, no hard feelings but—” she let out a sound of frustration and shook her head. “But I’m not that girl, okay? She looked up again. “If you want to cheat on your wife while you’re out of town, that’s your business but I don’t want any part of it.”

A whole flurry of emotions crossed Steve’s face at once before he settled on confusion. His forehead wrinkled and his eyes narrowed. “If I want to cheat on my wife?” he repeated, like she’d spoken a different language.

If she’d had less anxious, manic energy pent up, she might have registered the confusion. Might have realized that it would be difficult to fake that level of bewilderment. But Darcy was on a roll now. “Or fiancée or girlfriend,” she continued. “Whatever she is to you, you obviously love her if you’re carrying her picture around and bringing home groceries so just…” she made a motion with her hand. “Go back to her and stop messing around here with me.”

Some of the confusion started to ebb. It was replaced by a stony expression she’d never seen before. The corner of Steve’s square jaw clenched. “You went through my wallet?”

She closed her eyes and exhaled. “Yes. I did. It was an accident, okay? I got up to go to the bathroom and I kicked it and everything flew out and I was just putting it all back together and,” she sighed again and looked up. “Yes, I went through your wallet. I’m not proud of myself but—”

“So, you went through my stuff,” he cut her off, the harsh edge that had been missing before had found its way into his voice. “And found a photo and a post-it note and, without asking or giving me a chance to explain what it was, you just decided you understood everything and know exactly what kind of guy I am?”

She opened her mouth and closed it again. When he said it like that…

“Am I wrong?” she asked and wanted to drive the heel of her hand squarely into her forehead. Because now she sounded worse. Like she definitely didn’t have any doubts about what kind of guy he was. But she did. She had so many. She felt like she didn’t know anything at all and her stupid mouth wouldn’t stop talking and that bolt for the door was looking better and better with each second. “Am I missing something?”

Steve’s expression hardened and a mirthless laugh escaped his lips. “Uh, no. I guess not.” He shook his head. “You seem to have everything figured out. Well done, Nancy Drew,” he tapped his hand lightly on the counter. “I’m sure you’re going to be very happy assuming the absolute worst about everyone.”

Darcy opened her mouth to respond, but nothing came out. And it didn’t matter because Steve was not sticking around to hear it. He was not going to tell her she’d gotten him all wrong. He wasn’t going to explain anything. He was not going to give her anything that might help her try to fix the last five minutes. He just turned and left, the wind grabbing the door on his way out and slamming it shut behind him.

Her phone rang, startling her from the stunned silence Steve had left behind and she grabbed it blindly from her apron. “Yeah?”

“Hey,” Pietro’s voice was like a jolt back to reality. She let out the breath she didn’t realize she’d been holding and leaned forward, her elbows on the counter. “I know it’s not my usual day,” he said, and she could hear the bustle of downtown traffic behind him. Vaguely, she wondered where he was. “But I’ve had a really shitty afternoon and I was wondering if you minded if I picked Clara up from school and took her to dinner?”

Darcy pinched the bridge of her nose, her vision suddenly alarmingly blurry. “Uh, no,” she said quickly. “No, that’s fine. I’m sure she’d love that.”

Her ex-husband paused. “You okay, Darce?” he asked. “You can come too, if you want.”

“No,” she said again and laughed weakly. “I’m not going to butt in on a daddy-daughter surprise date.”

“I’ll have her home by seven,” he promised.

“Sounds good,” she said. Seven sounded like more than enough time for her to pull herself back together.

She ate a frozen pizza for dinner, one of the gourmet varieties that Clara didn’t like (“Too much _stuff_ , Mommy”), opened a bottle of cheap red wine and did a load of laundry, trying to turn her brain off enough to enjoy the only serial killer documentary on Netflix she hadn’t watched yet, but it wasn’t working. When Wanda’s face lit up her phone a little after six, she didn’t bother ignoring it.

“Hey, Wanda,” she said, turning off the tv.

“Hey,” Wanda said, sounding a little out of breath. “Why did you kick my puppy?”

Darcy felt her forehead wrinkle. “Huh? I didn’t kick any puppies.”

“Yeah. Ya did.” There was sound of a series of locks and deadbolts turning before a loud squeal and a slamming door before Wanda went on. “My golden retriever puppy who spends his Thursdays with you?” She cleared her throat with an obvious _ahem._ “Ring any bells?”

Darcy scrunched up her face and dropped her head back to stare up at the ceiling. “All the bells,” she muttered. “What about him?”

“What the fuck happened between you two?” Wanda demanded. “Last I heard you were all giddy and excited about your date and then I just ran into him at the grocery store and he looked like a.) the biggest bag of sad on the planet and b.) like he’d rather _die_ than see me. So again, I say, what the fuck happened?”

Darcy sighed and felt the anger and irritation bubbling under her skin again. “Nothing,” she said succinctly. “Nothing happened and nothing is going to continue to happen because nothing should have ever happened in the first place. How could you not tell me about Sharon?”

It was her last hope at clinging to any kind of delusion that she hadn’t taken a flying leap to wrong, unfair conclusions. If Wanda had known Steve was involved with someone else and hadn’t told her, then Darcy could at least direct some of this anger to her instead of keeping it solely focused on herself.

Exactly where—if she was wrong, if she _had_ just screwed everything up forever with Steve—it belonged. 

“Sharon?” Wanda repeated. Darcy’s desire to blame someone else cheered in vindication. “What the hell does this have to do with Sharon?”

“Uh. Kind of a lot?” she scoffed, sitting back up straight. “Why would you think I’d want to go out with someone who was cheating on his fiancée?”

“His fiancée…?” Wanda went quiet for a long time. “Darcy,” she finally said, gravely. “Sharon’s been dead for three years.”

Darcy’s heart stopped. “What?”

“She died like, three months after Steve proposed.”

_“What?”_

“She had some weird blood thing, I think?” Wanda went on, seemingly unaware that Darcy’s head had started to spin and she thought she might throw up. “I don’t think she was sick for all that long, but I don’t really know—I didn’t know her. This was all before Steve started coming into the shop.”

Darcy coughed. “So then how do you know all this?”

“Sam told me.”

“Who is _Sam?”_

“Steve’s other best friend,” she replied, as if there was a chart somewhere online that Darcy should have referenced. “He lives across the hall from me—we hook up sometimes. He’s husband material. It makes me nervous. _Anyway_ ,” she raced on before Darcy could comment on that new nugget of information. “What happened? Why are we talking about Sharon?”

Darcy poured herself another glass of wine and haltingly, letting the self-loathing ooze from each pore, ran over the finer points of what all had transpired since she’d kicked Steve’s wallet across the hotel room on Friday night.

When she finished, Wanda was quiet.

“Well,” she said finally, “that’s certainly one way to handle it.”

She drained the rest of her glass and put the bottle back in the kitchen, promising herself that she was done for the night. “Let it never be said that I _under_ react to anything.”

“What are you going to do?”

Darcy stopped in her dining room and cocked her head. “Do?” she asked. “I’m not going to do anything. He’s never going to speak to me again—and rightfully so. I freaked out, I yelled at him, I didn’t give him even a second to explain this incredibly personal and painful thing before I careened into a mountain of wrong conclusions and accused him of being just like—”

“Pietro?” Wanda finished.

She wandered back to the couch and flopped down. “Yeah,” she sighed. “And that’s not fair.”

“No,” her sister-in-law agreed. “It isn’t.”

“So I’m not going to do anything,” she repeated. “Because Steve is, apparently, a really good guy who deserves someone who isn’t still so fucking _damaged_ that she goes looking for a reason to push him away the minute anything starts to go right—”

“Darcy,” Wanda said patiently. “I wish you weren’t so hard on yourself.”

Outside, Darcy heard a familiar car pull into the driveway. Doors opened and closed and she heard Clara’s muffled chatter as she came up the walk. “I’ve gotta go, Wan,” Darcy said abruptly. “Clara’s home.”

“Kiss her cheeks for me!” Wanda said immediately before she added, “And call me later. If you want. I love you, Darce.”

She smiled faintly as the voices came closer. “I love you too.”

“Mommy, guess what!” Clara asked as she crashed through the door, Pietro close behind, carrying her backpack.

“What?” Darcy asked, forcing herself to brighten to match her daughter’s level of enthusiasm.

Clara climbed up onto the couch and deposited herself immediately in Darcy’s lap. “Daddy took me to Penn’s Landing for dinner and we saw a seagull eat a dead rat in like, _one gulp_.”

Her eyes widened and she let out a shocked laugh. “Really?”

Clara nodded. “It was _gruesome._ ”

“Sounds like quite a night,” she commented, waving Pietro to come all the way in. He closed the door behind him and set Clara’s bag on its hook. “Did you have fun with Dad?”

“Uh-huh,” she nodded again. Her cheeks flushed with excitement. “Daddy said he had a really bad day at work, so he wanted to hang out with me to make it into a good day again,” she said cheerfully. “Isn’t that nice?”

Darcy smiled and pushed Clara’s hair back behind her ear for her. “That’s _very_ nice,” she said genuinely and kissed the tip of her nose. “I’m glad you were able to turn his day around.”

Clara looked from her mother to her father and back again. “Can Daddy stay and tuck me in?” she asked, her wide blue eyes turning hopeful. “If I take a _really_ fast shower?”

Darcy glanced over at her ex, he shrugged a look that said, _I’m cool if you’re cool._ She looked back at Clara. “Okay,” she relented. “But a _really_ fast shower, okay? And only one chapter,” she held out a hand for a handshake. “Deal?”

Clara beamed and they shook. “Deal.” She leaned in and kissed Darcy again before she jumped off her lap. “Thanks, Mommy. You’re the _best._ ”

Darcy waited until Clara had clambered up the stairs before she looked back at Pietro and pointed to herself. “Hear that?” she asked, getting up from the couch. “I’m the best.”

He laughed and took a seat on the opposite side from where she’d been sitting. “Yeah, well, you didn’t take her a live viewing of the horrors of nature so—”

“ _Gruesome,_ ” Darcy mimicked their daughter before she laughed and shook her head. “You want a drink? Beer? Seltzer?”

“Sure,” he shrugged. “Whatever.”

She came back with two cans of fizzy water and offered him one. They cracked them open at the same time and did a half-assed toast to nothing before they each took a sip. They heard the water running upstairs. “Thanks,” he said after a moment. “For letting me hang out with her tonight.”

Darcy looked over, surprised. “You’re her dad, dude,” she reminded. “You don’t have to thank me.”

“Yeah, I know,” he said quietly. “I just…” he let his head drop back. “Wanted to.” He glanced over. “You really are the best, y’know.”

She snorted and rolled her eyes. “Yeah,” she muttered and leaned her head back too, staring at the ceiling. “You really lucked out in the ol’ ex-wife gamble.”

“Are you okay?” he asked after she’d felt him studying the side of her face for a long moment. “You didn’t sound great on the phone.”

“I’m not,” she said. “I…” she inhaled deeply and blew her breath out so that her lips buzzed. “You ever fuck up so badly that you think ‘God, I hope this is the worst I get.’ Like, the idea of there being an even _worse_ version of yourself is just unimaginable with how shitty you’ve made yourself feel?”

“You wanna…give me any kind of specifics?”

“No,” she said simply. “Not really.” A thoughtful silence lapsed over them while the water stopped rushing upstairs. The door opened and they heard Clara moving between the bathroom and her bedroom. “Brush your teeth, please!” Darcy yelled, angling her head toward the staircase.

“I will!” Clara yelled back over the sound of the sink. “And mouthwash!”

“Okay, well without knowing anything about what’s going on,” Pietro said after he’d taken another long swig of his water. “I can’t really say anything all that helpful.” He set the can on the coffee table and stood up. “Except that even the worst version of you is pretty cool.” He gave her knee a swat on his way past. “So, ease off on the self-loathing a little bit.”

Darcy offered an obligatory smile and watched him head up the stairs, threatening Clara with a visit from the tickle monster if she wasn’t in bed by the time he got there. It would be easy enough to suggest he stay after he’d read Clara a chapter from _Goosebumps_ and tucked her in. She knew him well enough to know that he wouldn’t take any convincing. She could let him fuck her on the couch with his hand over her mouth like they used to when Clara was a baby. He’d be comfortable and familiar; he’d make her feel good again.

She sighed and tucked her feet beneath her on the sofa. Pietro was good at making her feel good—for about half an hour. That was always the problem. He was charming and magnetic and when he directed that attention at her—even now, even after everything—there was still a part of her that fell for it. He made her feel special even though she always knew he didn’t mean it. It was just a game—and sometimes she played along, and sometimes it was fun, but it was still just a game.

 _You go too fast for me,_ she had said in his car once. They were twenty-three and she was trying to break up with him. Trying to tell him that she didn’t want to play anymore. That he wasn’t good for her anymore.

But he’d promised to slow down. For her. He’d promised to be a real boyfriend and grow up if she gave him a chance.

She’d given him a chance—she said yes when he asked her to marry him and she’d given him a baby and every opportunity to slow down and stop playing. And she hadn’t even hated him when it turned out he couldn’t. Couldn’t stop playing. Couldn’t stop flirting. Couldn’t stop chasing after the next newest, shiniest thing.

She told herself she stayed close with him because it was what was best for Clara, and it was. But there was still a little part of her that couldn’t bring herself to punish him for the way he’d hurt her—the way he’d twisted her ability to trust anyone else the way she’d trusted him—because she still liked being in his orbit, being the focus of that deadly, vibrant charm. She knew he didn’t mean it, but some self-destructive part of her thought it was better than nothing.

Darcy tried her best not to let her mind wander back to that night in Steve’s hotel room. When he’d devoured her with his eyes as much as his lips and told her how beautiful she was. How beautiful he’d made her _feel._ How easy it was to believe him—and not because he was playing or flirting or teasing—because it felt like he really meant it.

When Pietro descended the stairs twenty minutes later, Darcy did not invite him to sit back down on the couch with her. She stayed where she was, accepted the kiss he dropped to the top of her head and told him to get home safely. A few hours later, she kissed Clara’s sleeping face and went to bed alone.

She had enough regrets already.

***

“It sounds like you need to suck the venom from the situation,” Luis said on Thursday night.

If she thought she was done thinking and talking about the mess she’d made, it was only because she had forgotten about soccer practice. Not about practice itself. But her friends there. Her friends who knew about her date and who would want to know how it had gone.

And friends who, once they heard the abridged version, felt the need to offer advice.

“I don’t think I do,” she said aimlessly taking a pretzel rod that Scott offered her.

“No, it’s what you do,” Luis said. “Like when Scotty and I were camping in Bryce Canyon like, ten years ago? And I was getting the fire going, and Scott went to go take a leak in the woods and the next thing I know, I hear this screaming and I’m like, ‘Oh my God, that’s Scotty!’ and I run after him and he’s like ‘Luis, I think I got bit by a rattlesnake!’ And I—”

“Luis.” Scott’s hand clapped hard on Luis’ shoulder. “Please don’t finish this story,” he said, a grave expression on his face. “I’m begging you, man.”

Darcy smothered a smile between her lips and passed the napkins when Helen’s chai dripped onto her purse. “Save that story for my birthday,” she requested lightly. “And I don’t think there’s anything to salvage,” she went on. “I barely knew him.”

“But you liked him,” Helen reminded, not unkindly.

“Yes,” Darcy agreed. “I did.”

“And you’re obviously still thinking about him—to the point of still being upset about how things went down,” she added.

“Also yes.”

“So go and apologize,” she said like there was nothing to it.

Darcy offered a heavy side-eye. “We’re a little beyond a simple, ‘oops, my bad’ at this point, Hel.” She shook her head. “He has no reason to forgive me.”

“Yeah but that’s not why you apologize,” Scott chimed in. Darcy peered around Luis to look at him. “I mean, that’s what we tell our kids, right? You apologize because it’s the right thing to do when you fuck up.” He rolled his shoulder. “It’s his call if he wants to forgive you, but at least you can stop beating yourself up.”

“And hey,” Luis added with a smile. “You never know. Sometimes people surprise you.”

***

Darcy didn’t think that was going to be the case, but she had run out of patience with the way she was feeling. And Scott had a point, she reminded herself, texting with Wanda on the train on Friday afternoon. She _had_ taught her kid to apologize when she did something wrong. Whether she was forgiven or not wasn’t the point. The apology was the point.

 _He’s still here,_ Wanda texted her at two o’clock. _How far away are you?_

Darcy checked her watch and then the map on the train car. _Not far_ , she typed back. _Few stops. How long does he usually stay?_

 _Until 3 or 4 on Fridays, I think._ Wanda replied. _If he’s gone by the time you get here, we can regroup._

“Regroup?” Darcy frowned down at her phone. _I don’t know what you mean by that._

_I’ll ask Sam to tell me where he lives and you can just go to his house._

Out loud, alone in her row, Darcy scoffed. _I’m not going to his house,_ she said definitively. _If he’s not there when I get there, I’ll just take you out to dinner and then go home._

_Okay, well he just ordered another drink so he’s here for at least another half hour._

It was only another twenty minutes before Darcy was standing inside Caravan's sister store. It looked similar to hers, but Wanda had booths put in where she'd stuck with bistro tables. The space was bigger, the art was different, and the vibe was decidedly more relaxed. 

She knew Wanda was in the back. But she also knew that if she went back to see her, she could miss her chance to apologize to Steve.

Steve, who was sitting in a corner booth surrounded by proofs of his art and his digital tablet. 

Steve, who had not noticed her yet because his back was to the door and his head was bent over his work. 

Steve, who had no reason to talk to her. No reason to let her talk to him. Nothing to keep him from getting up and walking out the door the moment he spotted her. 

Darcy closed her eyes and did her best to settle her nerves with a deep inhale and an exhale through her nose. Then she walked briskly across the room and sat down across from him before she could talk herself out of it. "Hi."

He looked up, surprised for a whole second before his expression shifted to one of irritation mixed with disbelief. But he didn't get up. He didn't immediately leave. Darcy took that as a tiny, miniscule win.He folded his arms over his chest and sat back. "Come to accuse me of something else?" 

She swallowed and shook her head. "No," she said quietly. "I came to apologize. An apology," she rushed on, "which you do not have to accept, by the way. Obviously. You don't owe me anything after that immensely uncool freak out but I couldn't just mess up that badly and not apologize so." She forced her eyes to stay on his, no matter how badly she wanted to look away. "You didn't deserve that. Even if you--" she stopped and shook her head. "I should have just asked you about---" she stopped herself a second time. "Okay, actually I shouldn't have gone through your stuff in the first place," she clarified. "Even though it was an accident. But I should have just asked you or...better yet, trusted that you would have told me eventually." She wet her lips nervously, wishing he would say something. Do something to indicate if he was even listening. "You had been nothing but wonderful up until that point and when I saw that photo I..." Darcy looked down finally. "There was a part of me that was relieved."

Across the table, Steve blinked in surprise. "Relieved?" 

She nodded, miserable. "Because if you'd been lying to me--or to someone else--then it meant that you weren't wonderful. And that this thing between us wasn't going to work out. And I didn't have to be scared." She shrugged and looked up, her chest uncomfortably tight when she saw that Steve had dropped his arms to the table. He didn't look quite so defensive anymore. "I could just go home, and everything could stay the same."

His frown turned thoughtful. "What were you scared of?" he asked after a long moment of silence between them.

"How much I liked you," she admitted softly. "How easy it was to talk to you and trust you and how much everything in my life would have to change if I let myself remember what it felt like to be in a relationship again." She cleared her throat. "So, I _could_ have just asked you about the photo and the note, but it was easier to bolt," her shoulder moved again. "But in trying to protect myself," she finished, choosing her words carefully, "I'm afraid that I hurt you and I'm incredibly sorry to have done that."

Steve was quiet for a long time. Just long enough that Darcy was beginning to think he was just waiting for her to leave. She grabbed hold of her purse again, but he spoke up, keeping her in place. "I could have told you about Sharon," he said finally. "At dinner or..." he shrugged. "Even on Tuesday. It would have taken two seconds to clear this up but--" he paused and shook his head. "I don't know. I think I was relieved too."

She frowned. "You were?" 

He nodded. "Yeah. If you had already decided you hated me--especially for something I didn't do--then I didn't have to figure out how to do this again--" he motioned to the space between them. "I didn't have to worry about getting hurt or make myself sick worrying if your daughter was going to like me--" 

Despite everything, Darcy felt her heart swell at the thought that Clara had been someone Steve had worried about impressing.

"I'm guessing you already know this," he said reaching for his back pocket. He retrieved his wallet and removed the photo in question, wrapped in its grocery list. "But I'm not married. Or engaged. Or..." he shook his head. "I _was_ engaged," he said, and unfolded the note to reveal the photo again. Seeing it again, Darcy realized how old it was. The man in front of her looked like the man in the photograph's older brother. And the note was so much more faded than her memory had insisted. The edges were torn, and the fold was damaged. Like it had been read too many times. 

"Her name was Sharon; we met in the Army. She stayed in after I got out, but we were together for five years before I asked her to marry me." His throat bobbed as he swallowed before he touched the folded piece of notebook paper. "And this was the last thing I have in her handwriting," he admitted quietly. "She left early for work and I told her I'd pick up whatever she forgot from the store, so she left me this. But that was the same day they called me from the hospital because she'd collapsed during some training exercise. And..." he exhaled heavily. "I don't know. They couldn't figure out what was wrong with her--they determined a diagnosis way too late. She was only sick about three weeks."

Darcy's mouth had opened a fraction of an inch. "Jesus Christ," she blurted out before she could stop herself. "I see why it's not something you'd talk about on a first date," she shook her head and resisted the urge to reach for his hand. "I'm sorry, Steve," she said, hoping he could tell how much she meant it. "Not just for what I thought, or said, or accused you of," she coughed. "But for making you tell me something that personal before you wanted to. And I'm so sorry for what happened to Sharon."

Steve looked pensive for a moment before he did something Darcy did not expect. He smiled softly, almost to himself, as he folded up the note and photo and tucked them back into his wallet. "So you were relieved that I was a cheating piece of shit..." he said slowly, looking up after he'd put his wallet back in his pocket.

"And you were relieved that I was a psycho," she prompted, lifting her eyebrows expectantly, trying to gage where he might be going with this.

To her surprise, he reached across the table and took her hand. Gently. Tentatively. Like she might pull back. "Where does it leave us if it turns out we're neither of those things?" 

Darcy wet her lips and tried to remember how to breathe over the sound of her heart pounding in her ears. "Maybe it earns us a do-over?" she asked, unable to keep the hope from sliding into her voice.

"A do-over?" Steve repeated, that familiar half-smile now firmly back on his face. 

She nodded and turned her wrist, so they were shaking hands. "Hi," she said quietly. "I'm Darcy. I'm a non-smoking Taurus and single-mother from Bryn Mawr." Steve's quiet laughter gave her the boost she needed to go on. "I like espresso, hanging out with my kid, and going to baseball games and I am absolutely terrified of the thought of dating again because I'm so bad at it," she admitted. "But in this case, I'm willing to hope that the risk is worth it." 

Steve hadn't let go of her hand. His smile hadn't faded. "Hi, Darcy," he said warmly. "I'm Steve. I'm no good at this either."

She raised her eyebrows. "And... espresso?"

He smiled. "I like espresso."

"Baseball?" 

He scoffed. "I'm from New York, of course I like baseball. And I'm sure I'll love hanging out with your kid if she's anything like you." 

She felt a nervous, hopeful flutter in her stomach. "Would you be...interested in hanging out with just me again?" she asked. "Maybe sometime soon?" 

"What are you doing right now?" 

Darcy blinked. "Right now?" she echoed. "I'm...not doing anything. Why?"

The Wonder Wheel was at least twice as big as any ferris wheel Darcy had ever been on. She couldn't help the way her stomach clenched in terror at the idea of climbing aboard.

Steve looked at her and smiled. "You trust me?" 

She bit her lip, thinking about what he'd said. _It's not scary if you have the right person with you._ She nodded and let him take her hand. "Yeah. I do." 

And when Steve kissed her at the very top of the ride, with the wind whipping at their hair and the car sliding all over the place, and the city sparkling far below them, Darcy thought she should have been scared. 

But she wasn't. 

_-fin-_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you liked the wrap up my sweet ships!

**Author's Note:**

> I know.


End file.
